


Honey, I'm Home

by pir8fancier



Series: Do I or Don't I? [5]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 03:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2135862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pir8fancier/pseuds/pir8fancier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney returns to Atlantis after open heart surgery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honey, I'm Home

The second time Rodney wakes up, John and the doctor tell him that he is scheduled for a triple bypass in three days. Rodney doesn’t flip out like John expects him to. He just sighs and says in a small voice, “Get Cheney’s heart surgeon. He’s got to be the best. Cheney should have been dead twenty years ago. I’ve got millions, so pay the guy whatever he asks for.” Then he turns over and ignores them.

The third time Rodney wakes up John says, “Millions?”

“Of course. Right before we, you know, _left_ ,” Rodney wriggles his eyebrows, “I set up a mathematical algorithm to manage my investments. Best scenario would be that I’d return from,” Rodney points to the ceiling,” a very rich man. Worst case scenario? Jeannie would be a very rich woman. As it turned out, it even surpassed my expectations. It’s not particularly fancy. You could have derived it in your sleep.”

John shrugs. “Not interested in money. Fucks people up, in my experience.”

“It can buy you the world’s best heart surgeon,” Rodney points out.

******************************

John and Harkness manage to avoid each other the entire month Rodney is in Walter Reed. They cross paths but avoid eye contact. Harkness might be a supreme jerk, but it appears he’s not stupid. Whatever reaming out he’d received from O’Neill, at a minimum it established that John and Rodney shit gold bricks, and if John or Rodney asks him to do cartwheels down the hospital corridors, Harkness had better do those cartwheels until he passed out from exhaustion. John isn’t vindictive, so he doesn’t make Harkness’s life hell, no matter how tempted he might be. His father’s middle name should have been Vindictive, as it was the GPS for both his corporate and, sadly, personal road map.

In his more introspective moods, John realizes that _his_ personal road map is a combination of the military code of honor and a direct response to his father. At some point he hopes he’ll be able to let his father go to wherever ruthless, driven men go when they die. His death both released John and kept him captive. Now there’s no hope of redeeming himself in his father’s eyes or, more importantly, his father redeeming himself in John’s. Rationally, the inability to change anything should be the ultimate release. But John doesn’t have Ronon’s phenomenal ability to accept what can’t be changed. John’s relationship with his dead father is a work in progress.

Cheney’s surgeon is well worth the extra money, and Rodney sails through the surgery. O’Neill waives a bazillion regs and arranges for a puddlejumper to be flown to Dulles to take Rodney home. Atlantis is thrilled to have both of them back home. She positively beams the second Rodney and John land in the transport bay, the walls shimmering with joy. There are balloons and streamers and people tooting on kazoos as Rodney slowly makes his way down the ramp. Teyla and Ronon are at the bottom of the ramp to touch foreheads with him; Rodney isn’t the only one trying to hide the fact that’s he’s crying. He frowns and rolls his eyes when he sees the wheelchair, but he plops down in the seat and lets John wheel him to his quarters without any outward grumbling.

“There’s going to be a little party for you in the mess tonight. Act surprised. It’s a secret.” The lights blaze into little searchlights of approval as they move down the corridor. “Tired? Wanna take a nap?”

“No, I don’t, but I should. You know, this is a little creepy. The lights.” Rodney flaps a hand; his first hand flap in weeks. “Hal comes to mind.”

“She’s happy you’re home.”

“Does this mean that the desalination system will forego its bi-monthly fail?”

John smiles as the lights go out for a brief second. He might be imagining it, but he hears the faintest sound of laughter echoing throughout the city.

******************************

Rodney heals at a phenomenal rate. John can only put it down to Atlantis. Every morning in the shower he puts his forehead against the tile and thanks her. Since Keller resigned, sick bay has been a revolving door of doctors and medical staff. Atlantis isn’t your typical base, and a lot of the people they have cycled through don’t last more than a few months. The current Physician-in-Charge is Dr. Natasha Kim, who is, once again, a very young woman with a phenomenal I.Q. Despite having both a medical degree _and_ a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, Rodney cannot stand her and calls her Dr. Whoosis, refusing to use her real name even though they had the same Ph.D. advisor at M.I.T. Rodney has to see her for weekly physicals and blood draws. His arms are black and blue for months.

Two months after Rodney’s bypass, he’s almost back to normal. He’s not stomping through the corridors of Atlantis yet, but his tread is getting more emphatic. It’s near-stomping. John predicts that full-blown stomping can’t be more than two weeks away. Plus, at a staff meeting yesterday, in response to John’s request that the science staff increase their time at the firing range to once a week, he’d yelled, “Are you insane?” The room began clapping. And if that weren’t enough, the desalination system had failed that morning. John sees this as a barometer of Rodney’s health and is thrilled. Rodney had laughed good-naturedly at the clapping but resented like hell that the desalination system was back to its cranky self. 

As they leave the staff meeting, John points out that Atlantis might be yanking his chain a little. That returning to his usual state of McKay was reflected in the desalination system’s return to its usual fractiousness.

“If you weren’t such an asshole, the desalination system might not break down every time we turn around.”

“If that is true, then we _do_ have a little Hallitta situation on our hands,” Rodney warns.

“Hallita???” John snorts with laughter. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”

“Mark my words.” Rodney points a menacing finger at the wall. “I was right about Chaya, remember?”

John looks around to make sure no one is within ear shot.

“Well, you might have been right about Chaya, but you sure got my orientation dead wrong.”

“Hello? Pardon me, but everyone on this base would agree with me that should the Nobel committee have a collective mental breakdown and start handing out prizes for flirters extraordinaire, you’d have a lock on the nomination, Colonel Alien-Princesses-Come-on-Down. Do not give me that smug little smile. Go shoot guns or break people’s arms or whatever you do in your spare time. _My_ morning will be spent ensuring that we have potable drinking water.” Rodney sniffs and sort of stomps off in the direction of the desalination tanks. Yep, real stomping is only days away.

**********************************

As Rodney spends his morning wrestling with valves and tanks and saline monitoring systems, John receives a request for a meeting from Dr. Kim. He stifles a groan. He suspects this has to do with his yearly physical, which he hasn’t done in three years. With any luck, he can postpone it for another year.

After a terse, “Good morning, Colonel,” she gets down to business. “I understand you have a pure ATA gene.”

So maybe not about his physical. 

Dr. Kim is, at the outside, in her early thirties. Like all of the science staff, she is an intellectual wunderkind. A petite Korean woman with exceptionally short hair and no-nonsense demeanor, John doesn’t have an opinion about her one way or the other. She is good at her job and unlike her predecessors, seems to like Atlantis. That’s all that matters to John. 

“Yeah. On my chart. And?”

“I am at a loss on how to have this conversation, Colonel.” She fiddles with her watch, tightening the strap and then loosening it. John wouldn’t peg her as a “fiddler” by nature, so he guesses that she’s wondering how to frame what she is going to say next. “I have an engineered gene.”

“Most people do. Pure ATA genes are rare.”

“Dr. McKay’s progress is phenomenal.”

John raises an eyebrow. “Because you’re a good doc?”

“I am an excellent doctor, but that is not the reason why.” This isn’t said with any false modesty. It’s more like she’s just stating facts. She looks down at her watch for a few seconds and then seems to come to some conclusion. She looks up and faces him. John imagines that she’s this direct and confident in surgery. Maybe they should make some effort to keep her here. “I am receiving, no, that’s not right. I am being, let’s say, nudged in the direction of certain databases and directories. It’s difficult to quantify this nudging, but these files contain a level of medical knowledge that I cannot not possibly possess—“

“Unless you were an Ancient.”

“Yes.”

This is getting into woo-woo territory, but John figures, well, she’d opened the door. “Atlantis is, um, she’s talking to you?”

Dr. Kim blushes even as she acknowledges, “Yes. I cannot call it talking because it’s not that quantifiable. Atlantis is a she?”

John nods. “You should be thrilled. Most people with the engineered gene never, uh, hear her.”

“I imagine it is in service of Dr. McKay. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I would say that she is very fond of him. However, like Dr. McKay, she does not respect medical personnel in general.” John feels Atlantis rolling her “eyes” at that, but he manages to keep a straight face. “With her help and my current expertise, I can give Dr. McKay another twenty-five years; maybe thirty if he makes some serious changes to his diet.”

That little ball of angst that has been lodged in his lower back for months now eases. “I’ll take it. We’re working on his diet.” John starts to get up.

“Two more things. I would like your permission to seduce Dr. Zelenka.”

John blinks and sits down, expecting her to at least smile, indicating that this is a joke. Her face is impassive.

“Uh, be my guest?" Wow, this qualifies as weird. "You know, you don’t need my permission.” 

“I beg to differ. The original Pegasus crew is extremely insular, Colonel. I like it here. I wish to stay. I believe that if you did not approve, I would be ostracized. This would affect my role here as Physician-in-Chief. _She_ approves by the way.” Dr. Kim folds her hands and waits for John’s answer.

John hadn’t ever seen it that way, but he couldn’t deny that the original crew had a bond that was special and, yeah, probably perceived of as clique-ish. The city was growing every day as buildings were vetted and approved for habitation. Due to the security clearances necessary, Atlantis wasn’t being flooded with new marines, but base personnel was slowly increasing none the less. For the first time since they’d gone through the wormhole, John didn’t know the names of everyone under his command. He didn’t like it, but he had no control over it.

“Hey, she’s the ultimate arbitrator. If she says yes, then you’re good to go.” John gives her a thumbs up.

“Excellent,” she replies with a little nod and a small smile. “I find intelligence very attractive. And aside from Dr. McKay, who has yet to use my proper name in a professional capacity and therefore is not a candidate, Dr. Zelenka is the most intelligent man on this base. You are a close second, I might add; however, I find hairy men repugnant. No offense.”

John can’t help but laugh. She is just like Rodney. No filters. He might grow to like this Dr. Kim. “No offense taken. Radek’s a very nice guy.”

“I agree.”

John makes to get up again.

“Sit. Item number two, your physical. What time during the next week would suit you?”

******************************

_TBC_


End file.
